The first and last games of Stacy Dales’ four-year NCAA basketball run at the University of Oklahoma were less than spectacular, but in between the Brockville native keyed the revitalization of a major university team that nearly folded 12 years ago.

Not even winning a personal duel with Connecticut’s national player of the year and guard counterpart Heather Bird was enough to hand the Huskies their first loss in a 39-game season, but Dales and the Sooners gave the nation’s number one-ranked team one new experience—having to earn a tough-fought victory 82-70 in the championship game.

However, the loss to the Huskies may not have been the most trying defeat in Dales’ stay at Oklahoma. That might be reserved for her first-ever game in a Sooners’ uniform, when she tore her ACL, ending her first season almost before it had started. Dales was subsequently forced to sit on the bench and watch her teammates struggle to an 8-19 season. Coach Sherri Coale said her worst fear after that setback was that Dales would turn around and go home, but despite many tearful days that first year, quitting proved not to be Dales’ style. The team would not endure any more losing seasons, as Dales ripped through the Big 12 in her career there, becoming the conference’s all-time assists leader earlier this season and turning the future of Oklahoma basketball around in the process.

Only one other team lost to UConn by less than 20 in the NCAA tournament (Penn State, who lost by 18), but Oklahoma refused to be blown out, even after falling behind by 16 points early in the second half. The Sooners clawed their way back and trimmed the lead to six with just over two minutes to play, before the Huskies finally polished the game off with immaculate free throw shooting down the stretch.

Dales, for her part, netted a team-high 18 points against Connecticut, outscoring Bird by four points and holding the Huskies superstar to just six points from the field, with nearly half of Bird’s points (six) coming on free throws in the game’s last couple of minutes. However, Connecticut’s front court paved the way to a 44-25 team rebounding advantage, and ultimately victory, as they pushed around Oklahoma’s undersized forwards, outrebounding them 31-16 and outscoring them 51-32 as a unit led by 20 points and 13 boards from senior Swin Cash and 19 points and nine rebounds from Asjha Jones.

Oklahoma dominated in their own right during the tournament, bullying opponents most of the way to the final. The Sooners won each of their first five games by double-digit margins (the closest call was a 10-point win over Texas Tech). Perhaps most impressive was their semifinal win over fellow top seed Duke, an 86-71 triumph in which Dales won a riveting duel with all-American Alana Beard, outscoring her 17-15, then fouling out the Blue Devils’ star and forcing her to watch as Oklahoma iced an emphatic victory to mark the first finals appearance for a Big 12 school in tournament history.

Dales may not have been number one at the end of an otherwise brilliant season, but that may not mark her last battle with Bird and other new rivals. The woman from small-town Ontario is expected to be one of the top picks in the upcoming WNBA draft, perhaps even first overall. For Dales, stepping in as a new star in a foreign locale on a struggling team looking desperately for an injection of new blood will be nothing new—just ask the folks in Norman, Oklahoma, who had almost given up women’s basketball for dead before a Canadian came along to help save the day.